[3.5] Necromancer!

[BigKahuna]

I just finished the second session of an evil campaign I'm playing in and my character (an evil half-elf ranger who wanted to murder all full-blooded elves) just died a horrible death in prison. This was mostly my fault due to some mistakes at character creation which left him as a violent sociopath who hated everyone and, due to a perceived slight, picked a fight with a party member before being arrested by the town guard. Turns out it is rather hard to break out of jail when everyone hates you, so my character just rotted away in prison and was so annoying that a guard murdered him in his cell. For my next character I've decided to make a much more well-rounded evil character. My current thoughts are for a very academic gnome (or other short race) necromancer but I'm not sure what classes I should take. Ideas?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Dread Necormancer from Heroes of Horror.
Be a Necropolitan (LM, costs a little over a level's worth of XP) or take the feat Tomb-Tainted Soul (LM) for unlimited healing.
Take the feat Versatile Spellcaster from Races of the Dragon. Possibly get early access to the next higher level of spells with that, depending on your DM's opinion on how it interacts with when a DN gains knowledge of a given spell level. Combine it with the feat Magical Training (PGtF) to cast Wizard spells that you add the spellbook granted by that feat.

Get the Ghostly Visage familiar, it's one of the funnest, strongest, and most interesting class features in the entire game. Have it always possessing you to protect it and so it gives you immunity to mind-affecting (redundant if you're already undead, super useful otherwise). It can manifest over your face to use its paralyzing gaze in combat, though it can affect your allies as well. It can even spend a standard action every round to actively target its gaze on someone so they have to save vs its effect again, even if they already saved that round and even if they're not even looking at it.

[BigKahuna]

My DM and I were discussing Dread Necromancer. It seems well suited to what I want, and it has a lot less paperwork than a standard cleric or wizard necromancer. I like the idea of having the necropolitan template.

[drax75]

Hey on the subject.

Would anyone think it was super broken or over powered if you just made True Necromancer Gain both a arcane and divine spell level every level?

Would that fix the issue with them and not leave them to utterly broken?

Thoughts?

[JoshuaZ]

Hey on the subject.

Would anyone think it was super broken or over powered if you just made True Necromancer Gain both a arcane and divine spell level every level?

Would that fix the issue with them and not leave them to utterly broken?

Thoughts?

Yes, that would be fine. They'd be about on part then with the Mystic Theurge (the domain cost puts them down a little) and would be slightly stronger at high levels.

[Alienist]

At 20th level a true necromancer gets dual 8ths without even trying, and some 9th level abilities too.

Somehow this is considered a bad thing.

Go figure.

[Karnith]

At 20th level a true necromancer gets dual 8ths without even trying, and some 9th level abilities too.

Somehow this is considered a bad thing.

Go figure.
Well, the class puts them in significantly worse shape than they would have been had they stayed single-classed. And playing as a True Necromancer for the first few levels, especially if you go in the expected way (wizard 3/cleric 3) means that you are basically playing a 4th level character with more hit points in a 7th- or 8th-level game. At 20th level, they don't look terrible because they have high-level spells and they've made up for some of what they lost in taking the class, but during "normal" levels they really trail behind.

They can still be strong, especially at higher levels, because spellcasting is insane, but they're significantly weaker than, say, single-classed spellcasters (or even mystic theurges).

[drax75]

Ok another thought, What if you left the spell casting but took the HD cap off of rebuke undead?

In other words you could make a rebuke check against any undead of any hit dice at any level? The sacrifice would be you would keep the original spell casting progression of the class.

thoughts?

[ZamielVanWeber]

I would make a separate thread for true necromancer changes. The Death Master from Dragon Compendium gets intelligencr based casting with a pretty decent spell list and get and undead companion. They must be evil and pay some homage to Orcus but work out pretty well over (and they still get lichdom at 20).

[JoshuaZ]

At 20th level a true necromancer gets dual 8ths without even trying, and some 9th level abilities too.

Somehow this is considered a bad thing.

Go figure.

At high levels of play, you get limited numbers of actions and very rarely run out of spells, so lots of spell slots doesn't matter. And there just isn't that much synergy between divine and arcane necromancy. One 9th level spell will often end an encounter- it is more likely to do than an 8th level spell. Heck, a heightened 8th level spell is sometimes useful than 2 8th level spell slots.

The problem is that they are not as good a necromancer as a straight wizard, a straight cleric, a mystic theurge, or a sorcerer specializing in necromancy. Compared to the MT they are in some respects better at the very highest levels, but in the most common area of play (6-15 or so) they are substantially weaker. As a balance matter you are sort of correct though. I was in a campaign a while ago where I ended up being a TN both for flavor and partially to keep my power in check (since many of the other players were not optimized at all and didn't know much). It depends to some extent what you are looking for in a class. But as a straight power level it isn't very good compared to other options.

I suppose that if one has a wizard/cleric entry then a TN will be more flexible in some ways than a dread necromancer at 20th level, but they then get that at the cost of a lot of fun class features.